USS Cole

[darrels joy]

http://supportyourlocalgunfighter.co...-cole-suspect/

[darrels joy]

Don't Even Try

The real problem with military commissions.
By JAMES TARANTO


The Obama administration must have been unhappy last night with ABC News, which sent out a pair of "Breaking News" emails: "Obama Likely to Order Charges Dropped Against Alleged U.S.S. Cole Bombing Mastermind," said the first. The second announced that the charges had, in fact, been dropped. The effect was to create an impression that the administration had gone even softer on terror than anyone had feared it would.

In fact, the dismissal of charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was an insignificant development, as detailed in this Associated Press story.

Charges against all other Guantanamo detainees, including 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, had already been dismissed pursuant to President Obama's executive order halting the military-commission process pending review. The presiding judge in the al-Nashiri trial had effectively defied the order by scheduling an arraignment for today. His superior overruled him, and properly so. Whatever the merits of Obama's policies, he is the commander in chief, and military officers have a duty to follow his orders.

Al-Nashiri and the other defendants are not about to be turned loose. The cases against them were dismissed without prejudice, which means new charges can be brought against them. And they are still enemy combatants. Obama has declared his intention to remove them from Guantanamo by January, but he has not pledged to free them. Releasing these terrorists would endanger American security. Delaying their trial, or refraining from putting them on trial at all, would not.

This points to perhaps the biggest error the Bush administration made in its detention policy: placing a heavy emphasis on war-crimes trials--"bringing terrorists to justice"--as opposed to detention for the purpose of keeping them off the battlefield. The administration thereby invited comparisons with the civilian criminal-justice system, with its solicitous attitude toward the rights of the accused. The Bush administration's law-enforcement mindset probably hindered national security, and almost certainly would have done so eventually without a change in policy.

Many Guantanamo detainees are dangerous but cannot be prosecuted, even in a military commission, because of a lack of evidence that they have committed specific crimes. Had the commission trials proceeded on schedule--and we have the Supreme Court to thank for delaying them this long--at some point the Bush administration would have faced a political problem in that it would have had to explain why the worst of the worst were getting trials while the merely worse of the worst were being held forever without charges.

As far as we know, top Bush officials were oblivious to this problem. We made the point to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at a Wall Street Journal editorial board meeting in September 2006, and he showed no sign of comprehension. President Bush's public comments around the same time, in which he said he wanted to close Guantanamo after the military commissions had done their work, suggest he also did not understand it.

There is reason to think that the Bush administration was already succumbing to pressure to release detainees who could not be tried criminally, even if they still posed a danger. By the Pentagon's estimate, some 60 former Guantanamo detainees have returned to the battlefield.

This number has prompted some skepticism, but no one denies that some detainees have resumed combat.

If the Obama administration follows its ideological inclinations, it will compound Bush's errors, releasing even more dangerous but unprosecutable terrorists, and perhaps moving trials to civilian courts, which could compromise national security by forcing the release of classified material and the freeing of terrorists who managed to get acquitted or to have convictions overturned on appeal.

But the new administration has not actually instituted any such policies; it has merely undertaken a review. It is possible that those conducting the review will figure all this out, and that they will find a way of reorienting detention policies to make security, rather than justice, the central priority.

Opinionjournal @ wsj

[darrels joy]

Mother of USS Cole Victim Blasts Obama for Dropping Charges Against Terror Mastermind - Video 2.6.09



Here is video of a mother of one of the sailors killed in the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000 speaking out today against President Obama for his decision to drop the charges against the mastermind of the attack. She refused to meet with Obama today at the White House, and says he is letting down America's guard against Terrorists. Very powerful statements.

http://www.freedomslighthouse.com/20...sts-obama.html

[Arrow]

AND WHERE OH WHERE IS JUSTICE!!!!

“And judgment is turned away backward, and justice stands far off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth fails and he that departs from evil makes himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.”

Isaiah 59:14-15